MR. RUSSERT: He was asked last night what would he do as president. He said, “Well, I’d do lots of things.” And asked, what if—“Are you prepared to talk about those?” He said, “No.” Obviously wanting to give time to frame his issues...

I want to hear these anti-Hollywood conservatives attach themselves to another Hollywood actor and support Hollywood Fred and his phony Red Truck campaign. I had to put some Lady MacCheney in the video since she's working for Thompson now. I think his new slogan will be: "I'll do it my way." And let us not forget his support for Scooter Libby's pardon. Transcript below the fold.

Last night Fred Thompson was in Richmond, Virginia, speaking to the party faithful. NBC News caught up with him and asked him about the analysis of some experts that he was getting in the race too late. Here’s his answer.

(Videotape)

FMR. SEN. FRED THOMPSON (R-TN): Well, they decided some time ago that you had to start running maybe a couple of years ago and building your organization. I’m very curious as to whether they’re right. I don’t think they are. I don’t know who made those rules. I don’t know who the experts are. I’m too late to follow the rules even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to. So, you know, best I can tell, here I am, not having spent a dime, in the middle of the pack. So we’ll see who’s right, me or the experts.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Tony Fabrizio, the Republican pollster, weighed in with this: “If you’re not going to get in this race” in “double-time on work, effort and commitment, how do you expect to win? You need to send signals that say, ‘I’m here and I’m going to win.’” Urging Thompson just to get in straight out and run.

Mary Matalin, has Fred Thompson waited too long?

MS. MARY MATALIN: No, he’s not waited too long. And this organization is just building around him. Last night at that event, just in passing, a young person came up to him and said, “Well, we have captains in every county in this state for you. We have volunteers all over this state.” Everywhere we go there are “Fred-heads.” It’s—there’s a groundswell out there. I hate to use those words. I’m loathe to use those words. But he’s right. These rules were made by all of us, and some of them are going to apply. But they’re not—they’re not connected to a rationale for candidacy, which, clearly, no one has connected to a rationale that is buoying everybody up yet, and it doesn’t matter how much organization or how much money you have.

MR. RUSSERT: He was asked last night what would he do as president. He said, “Well, I’d do lots of things.” And asked, what if—“Are you prepared to talk about those?” He said, “No.” Obviously wanting to give time to frame his issues. You remember the 1994 Senate campaign when he ran for the Senate in Tennessee. Here he is with the famous red pickup truck. Is this going to be a, a campaign of a lot of style, a Hollywood actor saying, “I’m a good ol’ boy”?

MS. MATALIN: You know what that truck is? It’s a symbol of, and it will symbolize again in this campaign, is where he took off in that race and why he took off in that race. He was double digits behind, and when he said, as he said in that earlier clip, “I’m going to do this my way. I can’t do it by all your rules. I don’t want to do it by all your rules. I know why I’m a conservative. I know what my values are. I know the policies I believe in.” So the truck was a disputation of his handlers and “I’m going to do it my way,” and that’s what he’s doing now.

MR. RUSSERT: But we’ll see the truck in Iowa and New Hampshire.

MS. MATALIN: I—no, I—we will understand the truck is a symbol. We haven’t—I mean...

MR. ROBERT SHRUM: Yeah, we’ll see the truck in Iowa.

MR. MIKE MURPHY: I have a feeling there’s a handler right now buying a truck.

Comments

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service (revised 3/17/2016) for information on our posting policy.